Flight
by Simply Bewitching
Summary: Draco shares a moment of longing, pain, and remorse with the most unexpected person.


DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Flight**

It was raining that night, icy cold sheets of water pouring from the sky. The full moon shone palely through the clouds, but it was there. Evil had visited this place and he'd been powerless to stop it, yet again. Draco stood in doorway to the kitchen of the old farmhouse, surveying the scene before him. There was blood all over the walls, a man's body was on the floor, and it was presumably his blood. A large cauldron was on its side, a puddle of what looked like blood and ashes still inside, evoking a memory of flickering firelight and broken spells. Another man lay just outside the doorway, apparently killed with a spell, as there was no mess. Half of one wall was blasted away and the rain dripped through holes in the roof to create puddles among the rubble. He could see the faint green glow of the Dark Mark through the holes.

He was only eighteen, fresh out of Hogwarts, but he felt incredibly old. It seemed to Draco that more than a decade had passed since he'd been young and carefree, safe at school, protected from the world and from himself. When had it come to this? The quest for purity among wizard kind had become nothing more than a series of meaningless deaths. He hadn't joined the Death Eaters to torture, rape, and pillage. Killing, that wasn't so bad. No suffering, no pain, just a flash of light and it was done. It had been a hard-won lesson and one that his lord could never grasp, but Draco knew there were worse things than death.

Like the screams of his fellow Death Eaters' victims, haunting him in his sleep. Or the eyes of the children he'd orphaned. The black headlines in the paper. The glittering green Dark Mark. Or the scars on his arm where he'd tried to cut his own Mark out of his skin. The images of his mother's death. The cold glint of cruelty in his father's eye that Draco now recognised in his own. Those things were worse. Those were the things that wouldn't allow him to sleep at night, which caused the dark circles under his eyes and the hollows in his cheeks. He couldn't do this anymore. For all that he tried; he couldn't stop this war he didn't start.

Slowly, he walked over to the body lying next to the overturned cauldron. Looking into the man's lifeless eyes for only a moment, he reached down and closed them. A noise sounded, like glass crunching underfoot, and then a small gasp. Draco's fingers tightened around his wand and he glanced up to find a girl standing in the doorway where he had stood only a minute ago.

Luna Lovegood. An odd, dreamy sort of girl, much made fun of for her style (or lack thereof) and laughably crazy ideas, but pure-blooded and from a good family, though one that was resistant to the Dark Lord. Ravenclaw, friends with Potter, and more than likely involved with the Order of the Phoenix. His brain accessed this information much like a rotary card file flipping to her name and for a moment he was distracted and disoriented.

She had no cloak and though it was summer, it must have been around forty degrees, with the roof of the house partially blasted away and the rain pouring down so cold outside. She was dressed only in blue jeans and a thin shirt, the fabric clinging to her skin. Her blonde hair hung in heavy, messy tangles down her back and there was a smudge of dirt on her cheek and a stream of what looked like blood rolled down from the corner of her lips. Her face was wet with rain and despite all this, she was beautiful.

He studied her carefully, taking in the bruise on her chin and the cut on her forehead. Her hands were caked with blood and he could see the cuts on her wrists and a small pool of blood in the cuff of her jeans. Apparently, at least one person had survived the attack this night. She'd been badly mistreated and he hated to think of who had done it and to what extent. The girl stared at him and then down at the man on the floor. This must have been her father, he thought suddenly. Standing over the man's body with his wand, he knew how this must look to her, but what could he say? He looked at her, his steely eyes boring into hers, pale, heather grey, sad. Try as he might, he could not find the anger or hatred he expected, longed for. No, there was only sadness, terrible sadness, so intense that it enveloped him and fed his guilt.

He wanted her to rage at him, to attack him and hate him, not to stand in the doorway with those eyes that seemed to know what he was thinking. He wanted to be punished for his sins, to earn his redemption, but she simply stood there, big fat tears rolling silently down her cheeks. Draco Malfoy may have been a complete bastard, but he was a complete bastard with morals, though his own, cryptic, contradictory set and he knew he deserved everything she could throw at him, but instantly and unexpectedly, he decided he didn't want it. Not from her. She'd survived a Death Eater attack, a feat not many could accomplish. For the first time in Draco's life, he wanted forgiveness instead of condemnation. He had never felt such a strong urging to tell someone the truth, to confess his sins. To tell her that he hadn't killed her father. That he'd tried to stop it all, but was too late.

Suddenly, there was a crack in another part of the house, it sounded like someone Apparating. Both his and Luna's eyes flew to the doorway to the hallway. Draco was filled with fear. Fight or flight. Given the choice, he always chose flight. He may have hated all that he'd become and felt that he deserved some punishment, but he still didn't want to die. His eyes met Luna's again and this time he found a steady resolve. She headed toward the entrance to the rest of the house, but Draco silently stopped her. She stared down at his hand on her arm and glanced back up at him in fear. It was an expression he was used to receiving, but something in him broke when she looked at him like that. He didn't want her to be afraid of him. It was the strangest feeling he'd ever had.

He heard footsteps in the hallway and someone called, "LUNA!"

His breath was coming more quickly now. Short gasps of air. Should he run or stay? Run. But he didn't want to leave her. He didn't know why, but there was something about the way she stared at him that set him on fire, that rushed through the blood in his veins and made him feel that maybe everything would be all right. Maybe. Without even thinking about what he was doing, he reached a hand up to stroke her hair, to run his thumb along her cheekbone. Leaning over, Draco kissed her forehead lightly, a single tear slipping down his face to fall in her blood-stained palm.

"I'm sorry."

Two words, whispered in the darkness. Another, erasing memories and agonising pain. And then he was gone. Sneaking in and out of the shadows as the rain fell heavily on him; he headed for the one place where he knew he could make it all up, the one person who could help him find his forgiveness. Draco Malfoy would no longer be powerless to stop this war.


End file.
